Randal Rauser asked<\/a> whether God wears a suit and tie when God goes to church.<\/p>\nIn some ancient Christian texts, in particular but not only Gnostic ones, Jesus is depicted as changing his appearance. I wonder whether that started with an awareness that people spoke about Jesus in different ways, and an attempt to embrace it all by providing an (admittedly implausible) \u201crationale\u201d: he was a shape-shifter.<\/p>\n
The image of the palimpsest, however, is one that I like better \u2013 both because it alludes to the transmission of manuscripts, a key element in our knowledge of ancient Christianity; but also because it reminds that, before one can write whatever one wishes on Jesus as a blank slate, they need to erase what is there. And nothing has hidden the actual historical figure of Jesus from view like this constant erasure and subsequent new composition over the place where the old was once visible.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I will confess that I tend not to expect certain adamant atheist bloggers to offer nuanced and insightful discussions of matters of religion. And so I want to thank P. Z. Myers for challenging my stereotypes. Here is an excerpt from his recent post, \u201cPalimpsest Jesus\u201d: And there he is! Palimpsest Jesus! Once you spot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":22062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,101],"tags":[1625,2484,3996,4646,4660,5677,8640,12157],"class_list":["post-22057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-historical-jesus","category-theology","tag-cartoon","tag-david-hayward","tag-gnosticism","tag-historical","tag-history","tag-jesus","tag-palimpsest","tag-symbol"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n